Yang Sichang was different from Wang Zaijin, who became cautious after being driven to Nanjing after being frustrated in his ideas about the Liaodong war strategy, so when he was recalled to Beijing by Chongzhen, he showed obedience to the emperor, which was also criticized by other ministers.

Although the former has been in the office for nearly 20 years, he has not been able to be reused because of his father, after all, the government and the opposition do not want to have a situation where the father and son echo each other.

Therefore, Yang Sichang was quite depressed, and Chongzhen strongly advocated transferring him to Yang He's side and letting him help his father govern Shaanxi, so that he could realize some political ambitions.

However, for Yang Sichang, his career as an official in Shaanxi did not satisfy him, but made him want to really get a chance to be in charge, so that he could implement his political ideals without hindrance.

Therefore, after taking over the post of Wang Yongguang's left attendant of the military department, he was dissatisfied with the current situation in which the military department was vacated by the General Staff Headquarters. Although the General Staff was established with the intention of becoming an assistant to the emperor in commanding the army during wartime, it maintained the daily training of the army and the management of the officer corps during the war.

Theoretically, both the Governor's Office and the Military Department of the Five Armed Forces are superior units of the General Staff, but after the operation in reality, the General Staff Headquarters has instead isolated the connection between the Governor's Office, the Military Department and the armed forces of the Five Armed Forces.

As for the Governor's Mansion of the Five Armies, they have no opinion, after all, as early as more than a hundred years ago, the Ministry of War had taken away most of the power of the Governor's Mansion of the Five Armies. However, as far as the officers of the Ministry of War are concerned, the expansion of the power of the General Staff is undoubtedly detrimental to their interests. Whether it was the promotion of military ministers or the production of armaments, they were originally the money bags of the officials of the Ministry of War.

It's just that the protest of the military officials obviously can't withstand the invasion of the Houjin army, when Chongzhen invaded the Jin bypass two years later, the incompetence of the military officials and the ** of the arsenal made the emperor personally repelled the Houjin army, and returned to the capital to carry out a major purge of the military department, so that the military officials who dared to disobey the emperor's orders were either dismissed or exiled, and afterwards the military officials entered the official school in batches for re-education, so that the emperor completely mastered the military department.

However, for a newcomer like Yang Sichang, the situation of the General Staff Headquarters and the General Staff Department was obviously intolerable, so after he took office, he began to collect information on the conflict of powers between the two sides, and today he came to Jin to meet the emperor in an attempt to reorganize the terms of reference between the Governor's Office of the Five Armed Forces, the Military Department, and the General Staff Headquarters, so as to restrain the increasingly large General Staff.

Zhu Youzhen read the information sorted out by Yang Sichang very patiently, but Zhu Youzhen did not give a positive answer to his proposal to clarify the functions and powers between the three in order to restrain the expansion of the power of the General Staff.

With the General Staff Headquarters as the core, to be precise, it should be the Army and Navy Joint Staff Conference as the core to control the army and navy construction of the Ming Dynasty, and the establishment of a Ministry of National Defense composed of civilian officials above the General Staff Conference to lead the leadership is the most suitable superstructure of the army in Zhu Youzhen's mind.

The Council of Officers, composed of officers, is responsible for how to fight a war, while the Ministry of Defence, made up of civilian officials, controls the budget and makes strategic decisions. In this way, the army does not have to worry about being led by a group of laymen, and the bureaucracy does not have to worry about the power of the warriors getting out of control, forming a powerful military group.

It's just that for the current Daming, such an institutional reconstruction is not yet timely. After all, the Governor's Mansion of the Five Armies is now one of the few places where the Governors of the Five Armies can hold official positions, although Chongzhen has greatly reduced the positions of the Governors of the Five Armies, but ten years is not enough time to form a new mechanism for appointing officials.

As for the officers of the military department, although they have become much more honest after the purge, the time since the establishment of the General Staff is still too short, and the staff officers are still too young to play games with the bureaucracy under the rules of officialdom.

It was Chongzhen who preferred to maintain the current ambiguous state so that he could intervene in the power struggle between the two sides at any time, and under his favoritism, the bureaucracy was obviously unable to suppress the General Staff.

Yang Sichang's proposition is certainly very thoughtful, but in Chongzhen's opinion, the plan in his hand is still ten years ahead, and perhaps it is most appropriate to consider this issue ten years later.

After reading the plan in his hand, Chongzhen pondered for more than ten minutes before he said to Yang Sichang: "Yang Qing's idea is still very insightful, I think this direction is correct..."

The emperor's words suddenly lifted Yang Sichang's spirits, and just as he continued to listen attentively, Chongzhen suddenly turned around and said: "... However, I do not feel that this is a good time to adjust the functions and powers of the three yamen.

Yang Qing must know that our military reform plan has not yet been fully implemented, and China's armed forces that can truly be called the army are now less than 300,000. The remaining 1.6 million armed forces can only be called paramilitary forces, and it is okay to let them maintain local law and order, and to transfer them to the front line to fight the enemy is undoubtedly to send them to death.

Therefore, in the current situation, the reorganization of the army and the replacement of equipment are the priority matters of the imperial court. To achieve this, we must tolerate some overstepping of the authority of the General Staff, otherwise we are hindering the implementation of the army reform program.

In a country with a vast territory like the Ming Dynasty, 300,000 troops cannot protect the safety of the entire country. If a country can't even guarantee the basic security of its citizens, and if the power of the military is too great, I don't think it's meaningless..."

Yang Sichang obviously didn't expect the emperor's turning point to come so quickly, and he couldn't react for a while. However, after all, he had contact with some local people in Shaanxi, and knew that Chongzhen's military ills were not untrue.

He hoped to clarify the rights and responsibilities between the three yamen, and his original intention was also to suppress the excessive expansion of the martial forces. After all, when he was in Shaanxi, he had seen those generals who regarded the soldiers of the border army as their own slaves, and this was after the General Staff carried out military discipline rectification of the Northwest Frontier Army.

It was such a border army, and many officials actually praised him in front of him, and now the atmosphere of the border army is much better. The subordinates of He Renlong in Yansui Town before, it is said that no one can command anyone except He Renlong, as if they are a country within a country.

Only then did Yang Sichang want to use the method of limiting power and clarifying responsibilities to control the expansion of the General Staff. But Chongzhen's thoughts were not the same as his, in the emperor's eyes, the General Staff was an institution that controlled the army on behalf of the imperial court, rather than the representative of the local army in the court.

While Yang Sichang was still thinking about the meaning of the emperor's words, Zhu Youzhen had already changed the topic and said: "Yang Qing, you came at the right time, in fact, even if you don't come today, I plan to summon you to discuss one thing." ”

Yang Sichang, who was interrupted from his train of thought, hurriedly bowed his hand to the emperor and said, "Please also ask Your Majesty to command." ”

Zhu Youzhen looked at him and said seriously: "Yang Qing, as the left squire of the military department, doesn't know the information about the Oirath department, how much do you know?" ”

Yang Sichang thought for a moment and replied: "Back to Your Majesty, the news that the Ministry of War received about the Oirat Department is that after the Oziertu of the Heshuo Special Department was canonized by my Ming Dynasty as the Chechen Khan and the Khan of the Oirat, he convened the leaders of the Oirat tribes to hold an alliance meeting in Urumqi in August this year. It is said that the meeting was a success, and the leaders of the Oirats recognized the Ozirtu Chechen Khan as the Khan of the Oirat. That's all the Chancellor knows. ”

After Zhu You listened, he made a gesture to Lu Qi on the side, and Lu Qi walked to the file cabinet on the side and found a document and handed it to the emperor.

Zhu Youzhen pushed this document in front of Yang Sichang and said: "This is the detailed information about the Oirat Alliance, you can take a look."

Overall, the alliance, while somewhat successful, was also based on compromise. Although the chiefs of the tribes supported the Ozirtu Chechen Khan as the Khan of Oirat, they did not recognize that the Khan of Oirat had the power to punish the Taiji of the tribes.

At our suggestion, the Oirat Ministries decided to set up the Oirat Long-term Kuri Observatory to be used to decide the internal and external affairs of the Oirat Ministries. There are 36 Kuritai deputies in the four Oirat ministries and 16 deputies in the other ministries.

In order to gain the support of the Dzungar Ministry, Batur Huntaiji became deputy Khan and became the commander of the army that would attack the Kazakhs next year. In addition to the Deputy Khan, there will be four ministers under the Khan of Oirat, one is the Minister of War, the second is the Minister of the Exchequer, the third is the Minister of the Interior, and the fourth is the Minister of Justice.

The candidates for the four ministers were proposed by the Khan of Oirat and the Deputy Khan, and then submitted to Kuritai for a vote. After four votes at the Kuritai Congress, Shukurdai Ching was the Minister of War and Sai Yin Giya as Minister of Justice, but neither the Chancellor of the Exchequer nor the Minister of the Interior was willing to take the post.

Presumably Oirat, who had no finances to speak of, but had to bear the expenses of the Kuritai Assembly and the Khan's Court, the Chancellor of the Exchequer became a subsidized position, and therefore no chief was willing to take up the post.

The same is true of the Minister of the Interior, Oirat did not have an administrative body before, and the Khan of Oirat could not regulate the internal affairs of the clans, so no one wanted to take up this empty position.

So in the end both positions were pushed to the Ozirtu Chechen Khan for personal appointment, which is a good thing for us. Therefore, the Southern Xinjiang Overseer Fan Yixuan held consultations with the Ozirtu Chechen Khan, and decided that the Ming Dynasty would send officials to serve as political advisers to the Ozirtu Chechen Khan to help him establish a financial system and administrative institutions.

I intend to send you and Lü Daqi to the Oirat and Shute Ministries as political advisers to the Ozirtu Chechen Khan, serving as Minister of the Interior and Minister of the Exchequer respectively. In addition, I will also transfer a group of officials from the interior to you to help you establish administrative, financial and taxation institutions in northern Xinjiang, and set up a school to train officials, so as to absorb the children of the nobles of the various departments of Oirat, so that they can receive the education of the Ming Dynasty.

Your tenure in the Oirat Department is related to whether the Northern Oirat Ministries can be peacefully incorporated into the Ming system, so I hope you can carefully consider whether you are willing to accept this appointment..."